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#76
03-16-2016, 11:33 AM
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__________________
Derek Coombs Youtube -> Website -> Music -> Tabs Guitars by Mark Blanchard, Albert&Mueller, Paul Woolson, Collings, Composite Acoustics, and Derek Coombs "Reality is that which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Woods hands pick by eye and ear
Made to one with pride and love To be that we hold so dear A voice from heavens above 
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#77
03-16-2016, 12:57 PM
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Once again, thank you for your comments Derek and point well taken regarding pressure and feel. In hindsight, I was thinking more in terms of theory rather than practical application. As I am only playing my acoustic at the moment I will look for an appropriate tutor book.
I very much enjoyed your compositions and playing on youtube. Kind regards, Ian.
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#78
03-19-2016, 07:11 AM
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FG700S Barre Chord Story
I bought my first guitar at the GC took it home in a box none the wiser. I did have help from the salesman and like the guitar. The action is high out of the box no doubt. I worked on it some and lowered the action only slightly playing this guitar for a year.
Went to a private owned guitar shop that had a few new FG700S hanging on the wall. Picked one up and tried to barre a Bbmaj7 and immediately it rang out nice and clean. I was dumbfounded because it was killing me to get this one out on the one I already own. I took that new guitar home with me and later took my old one back to that dealer for set-up. Learned a valuable lesson that day.
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2006 Yamaha F200TXR 4 stroke. My Guitars - Yamaha FG700S Sandburst; Epiphone Les Paul Standard; 2018 Yamaha LL-16D Natural; Ibanez Talman Bass; Fender Standard Telecaster; Yamaha FG820-12 Natural; Yamaha FS830 Tobacco Brown Sunburst; ....A beginner practicing almost everyday since 12/15/14....{:::]==={=O=I}
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#79
03-19-2016, 07:17 AM
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Since this seems to be a good barre chord thread, I'll post this here w/o starting a new thread.
In my earlier post I linked a video to an on line course I'm about to finish through Berklee. Here is one of the assignments. Strum each of these barres 4 strums in even time from start to finish. I have issues with this chart and will post it here for your feedback. Remember the video goes with it, but this chart alone is questionable. Tell what you think about the accuracy here.  Oh what the heck.......here is my submission for the assignment. I'm not able to do these fluently and gave it what I had.....
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2006 Yamaha F200TXR 4 stroke. My Guitars - Yamaha FG700S Sandburst; Epiphone Les Paul Standard; 2018 Yamaha LL-16D Natural; Ibanez Talman Bass; Fender Standard Telecaster; Yamaha FG820-12 Natural; Yamaha FS830 Tobacco Brown Sunburst; ....A beginner practicing almost everyday since 12/15/14....{:::]==={=O=I} Last edited by polarred21; 03-19-2016 at 07:29 AM.
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#80
03-19-2016, 08:37 AM
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Quote:
E.g. Bm/F# instead of Bm.
__________________
Derek Coombs Youtube -> Website -> Music -> Tabs Guitars by Mark Blanchard, Albert&Mueller, Paul Woolson, Collings, Composite Acoustics, and Derek Coombs "Reality is that which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Woods hands pick by eye and ear
Made to one with pride and love To be that we hold so dear A voice from heavens above
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#81
03-20-2016, 09:09 PM
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With A shape barre chords, should one try to finger them with all 4 fingers? I find it impossible to fit the middle, ring and pinky on the same fret. The other option is to barre them with the ring finger but then I end up muting the high E, plus I find it locks in a lot of tension (but maybe that's just a lack of practice).
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#82
03-21-2016, 06:50 AM
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 )Alternatively - especially if you do need that 1st string - you could try fingers 3-2-4 (pushing the middle up between the other two), or a 2-finger combination - flattening middle or ring on strings 4-3, with ring or pinky on 2nd string, which ought to leave 1st string clear. Also, because you only need the middle 4 strings, one finger per string might work if you can mute the outer two (if removing the need for the index barre helps). There is no one "correct" way to finger any chord. Only a selection of variously (un)comfortable and/or (in)efficient methods depending partly on your fingers (their size and flexibility), partly on musical context. I.e., sometimes the chords you need to change from or to will dictate your choice of fingering on a chord. This is not about strategies for avoiding barres. Sometimes the barre IS the simplest and most efficient shape.
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"There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in." - Leonard Cohen.
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#83
03-21-2016, 10:40 AM
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One thing that's overlooked by most barre-chord newcomers, is the angle at which you hold your guitar. Try rotating your guitars' neck/headstock upwards, to roughly 10 o'clock, or a bit higher. This will immediately make your wrist more comfortable (and stronger). This step is important. Second; the easiest way to master the actual chord-forming aspect (fingering) of your barre-chord, is to play those chords un-barred for the moment, and using all your fingers except the index finger. This will help you play the chord cleanly. Example; play an A minor using only your middle.ring,and pinky fingers,,,,,,,,, then switch to an E with the same fingers. Play that pairing over and over, back and forth, until you master the chord-change cleanly. Once that's become second nature, just play those same chords one fret up the neck, using the same fingers, and drop that index finger across the strings, behind the first fret. Bingo!!! It's that easy,,,,,,, but keep that head-stock high. Last edited by Bobby1note; 03-21-2016 at 10:45 AM.
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#84
03-21-2016, 01:22 PM
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Quote:
__________________
Derek Coombs Youtube -> Website -> Music -> Tabs Guitars by Mark Blanchard, Albert&Mueller, Paul Woolson, Collings, Composite Acoustics, and Derek Coombs "Reality is that which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Woods hands pick by eye and ear
Made to one with pride and love To be that we hold so dear A voice from heavens above
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#85
03-21-2016, 02:48 PM
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For the most part, with fingerstyle, I haven't really needed to do any as of yet (there's always a way to finger the chord without necessarily needing to bar it entirely). But at some point I will no doubt need to.
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#86
03-22-2016, 09:46 AM
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Lots of good stuff has already been mentioned in this thread (which I just spent the past 20 minutes reading top to bottom). In addition....
Bear in mind that the guitar is endless. This can either be a source of great distraction or a source of great strength and possibility. I think one of the things that helped me in my formative years was the latter. Every day I still try to retain the mindset of a beginner (whether I'm playing or teaching). But enough hippie dippie philosophical musings. You asked about barre chords. There are so many different ways to play any chord on the guitar that my first suggestion is to keep focusing on songs (whether you're learning or writing them yourself), and if a chord is the missing link, see if you can find another way of playing that same chord that makes it less daunting. Forever economy of motion. This was Chet's (Atkins) great gift. The guitar is already hard enough without making it any more difficult. But if you stick with it for love rather than any kind of external motivation, sooner or later it WILL come into focus. If a barre chord is absolutely the necessary and only way of getting the sound you need, then --- as others have already said --- the angle of the guitar in relation to your body and placement of the thumb in the neck --- combined with a dropping of the wrist (by dropping I mean more or less vertical position) will all help --- but also.... Once that wrist is dropped, there is also an aspect of whether your wrist is on a completely even plane, or sightly rotated. This determines the placement of your index finger across all 6 (or 5, or 4) strings. For me, this is a big deal because we have to make minor adjustments depending on what part of the neck we are on... If I play a Bb barre chord at the 1st fret utilizing an A shape (barring all 6 strings), there's going to be more distance between the barre and my remaining fingers (on the 3rd fret, strings 4, 3, 2) than if I were higher up the neck. What this means is that there is more room in the space of the 3rd fret to position your fingers without muting any of THOSE strings, and to hold down that 1st fret barre, you'll probably want that index to be pretty spot-on vertical, with the wrist dropped way down (this involves dropping the shoulder as well). HOWEVER, move up to the 10th fret and play a G barre chord out of that same shape (barre on 10th, with remaining pitches fretted at 12th fret on 2nd, 3rd, 4th, strings). If you keep that barre perfectly straight and that wrist dropped down correspondingly, at least my wrist is not comfortable at all AND it's going to place the remaining fingers in such a starting position that getting all the pitches on the 12th fret to sound cleanly is going to be way harder. BUT... If you rotate your wrist counter-clockwise (from 12:00 back to 11:00) that brings my pinky back with it and gets it nicely into the 12th fret for a clean attack, along with a spread on the index spanning the space of the entire 10th fret. Technically you're now barring across different positions of the same fret, and if you want to go all micro-tonal, yes, that will slightly affect the pitch. But the guitar is an imprecise instrument at best anyways. I'm obsessive about tuning and pitch, but when playing barre chords there's just too much more going on to really notice a microtone across 6 otherwise in-tune strings while playing a good song with feeling. To make a long answer even longer, however.... Look for the shortest distance to where you need to go. You mention B minor. Do you really need a 6 strings barred to get a nice sounding B minor. I would submit not. So go for only 5 strings (like Keith Richards; that was a joke). Is even that too difficult right now, so your song that contains 2 chords you have down perfectly is disrupted by going to the B minor (suppose this is your 3rd chord).... If so, when you get to that part of the song, just use your four left hand fingers in position but without the barre (3rd finger on 4th fret of 4th string, pinky on 4th fret of 3rd string, 2nd finger on 3rd fret of 2nd string, and index on 2nd fret of 1st string).....if you're just playing rhythm guitar and it's not an intricate solo piece where you're holding down melody and bass notes at the same time (i.e. Chet-style, solo jazz guitar, etc.)...honestly, this is going to sound not only just fine, but vastly better than sacrificing the groove or tempo to try for the barre chord before you've really internalized it. The whole point of this ramble is momentum. Do anything it takes to sustain momentum. When you come across a stumbling block don't let it stop you. Find a way to work around it while you continue to stare it straight in the face so that stumbling block eventually cracks and falls down. But if the stumbling block stops you altogether, that's where the guitar gets mechanical and stiff and uninspired and you start judging yourself feeling like you aren't any good (which could be the furthest thing from the truth....music is within all of us), and that's when it goes under the bed for another 10 years. Don't let that happen. Do anything (literally anything) to nourish and sustain that love for music and the act of playing the guitar. On a final note, and this is completely wrong from a classical perspective, but oh well.... If you have a nice long left hand thumb, use it!! Hendrix rarely played true barre chords. Like on Axis Bold As Love and a million other times. That thumb frets the bass of the A chord at the 5th fret, and so literally the only thing his index has to barre is the 1st and 2nd strings up top. You're substituting a whole barre for a partial barre. For chords like B minor that have their root on the 5th string (or, gasp, an F chord at the 3rd fret out of a D shape...which to me has always been impractical...I never saw Chet use that shape at all, and short of torturing yourself by deciding to learn Free Fallin' by Tom Petty without a capo, why would this be a shape worth consistently going for? Pat Martino goes for that shape in his arrangement of Both Sides Now, but it's not so much a barre as it is index on 4th string, 3rd on 3rd string, pinky on 2nd string, 3rd on 1st string....in other words, the index may look like it's barring but it's only responsible for sounding the 4th string)..... For chords like that....wrapping the thumb around becomes considerably less usable. Occasionally Chet would wrap his thumb around the 6th and 5th strings, but less so as he got older (early on he was more obviously influenced by Merle Travis, who did that a lot). If you have a really long flexible thumb it might just work for getting a B minor chord that way. Others, physically it just won't happen.... So in that case, you've gotta go back to working to get that index cleanly in position. The point is there is always another (possibly new and even more exciting) way to look at the guitar, and for as long as I've been playing it has never ceased to amaze me. By all means, do whatever it takes to accomplish your goals. But don't become so focused on only one aspect of reaching those goals that the boundless world of the guitar becomes small. It's so vast. And so beautiful Hope some of that helps
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#87
03-22-2016, 12:49 PM
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Over the years I found that if I relax my hand instead of trying to force it, I am able to play barre' chords easily. Hand position is definitely critical and applying pressure incorrectly makes it harder. I personally would not be in the camp of learning to play barre' chords on an electric guitar. It may be great for muscle memory, but the technique is better served learned on an acoustic IMHO. After that, an electric is a piece of cake. Hope this helps somehow.
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#88
03-22-2016, 01:59 PM
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I will give you some barre chord advice, yes barre chords do take some effort, but if you know exactly where to channel the effort you won't use more than is needed and they become effortless.
My advice, approach them as if you aren't even playing the guitar, approach them as if you are trying to physically crush the neck with your hand, and I am serious, imagine you just hit your toe, and you are in pain walking around in frustration, that is the kind of attitude you need to approach this with. Then play your songs using this thought and anger, and before you know it, you can lower the effort gradually untill it's easy. Start from the top down, not from the bottom up. If you can't play barre chords you are missing out of one of the best areas of guitar, the funk/coffee house upbeat type songs bahaha.
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#89
03-23-2016, 09:46 AM
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See if you can "feel" the frets beneath your index finger. Sometimes you just need to straighten your finger - which takes little strength. Other times you shift slightly to allow wider portions of your finger near knuckles to press the fret - which again takes essentially zero strength. And if it is the top string not sounding clearly, dropping the arm can help.
__________________
Martin OM-18 Authentic 1933 VTS (2016)
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#90
03-23-2016, 12:05 PM
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Although I haven't really had any issue hitting good barre chords since my early years playing, I did notice a significant improvement a couple years ago when I made a big change. I had recently purchased my first nylon string, and started playing with the guitar in a more "classical" position, between my legs instead of on my right leg. This totally changes the neck angle and made many chords much easier to hit for me. Although it's not the most comfortable position with a dreadnought size guitar, I still use it when playing the big boys. I'm not sure this will help, but thought I'd share my personal experience.
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